This question was originally for Neil, but after careful thought I felt that approaching the "masses" may be just as insightful.

I would not consider myself a writer by any means, however; I do enjoy to write. In recent months I have began to question my current profession. (Alas it is nothing taboo, or worthy of stone-casting ridicule. Rather, it is very stressful, demanding, and honestly feels as though it has caused me to reach a crossroads.) It had never occurred to me to ever consider writing a story; something of that magnitude always seemed beyond the realm of possibility for me. That as it may be, a month ago I decided to attept writing a novel (mostly after watching, and then reading Stardust. It evoked something inside of me). I've always found some comforting form of therapy in writing. As much as I would love to have someone give me the answer to my obvious professional dilemma, that is not the purpose of my posting. Initially, my writing was moving at subsonic pace, but in recent weeks it has slow dramatically. I read somewhere that one of the secrets to writing is to keep doing it, almost making it habitual. Whether it is true or not, I've found that writing daily prevents procrastination from setting in. I have, however, run into an odd situation and therein lies my questions. I have so many thoughts and ideas as to the direction I would like to see my story go. Good I know, but somehow I can't get these thoughts onto paper. It's almost created a writer's block of sorts. Does anyone have any suggestions for working through this?

Most Appreciated,
CT

P.S. My apologies for the verbose nature of my inquiry. Ha.

Might help to keep your ideal reader in mind. Personally my problem's always been escaping the masturbatory thing, not having anyone to write for. There were times when I had an audience, or was trying to impress a girl, when I would compose sentences and paragraphs during most of my waking hours, even in my dreams. So I'm saying find your muse.

Try writing a random passage. Just something that you can see your character doing, not necessarily from where the story is at now, just something that is within that characters parameters. Go wild with it, have them a little different, a little older, wiser, whatever. Then if you like it look back at the bulk of the story and see which of your ideas could connect the two points. Might get some inspiration. And no one said you can't write the ending before the beginning

Have you tried mindmapping techniques? They're good for getting an overview of what you have in mind and how it all ties in togeather story-wise. I could never write only relying on the inspiration of the moment, so I drew timelines, wrote summaries of chapters beforehand and such.

Another trick that kept me going was changing perspective every now and then. I had one main character, but sometimes I wrote from the perspective of someone else, occasionally just a minor character.

just pick one and go with it. if it isn't right, cut it and try again. there's no right and wrong in writing unless you have a goal in mind. it doesn't sound like you do, so just write. write it all and then see what you can do with it. it doesn't matter.